The Cryptkeeper is one of the most awesomely grotesque creations on all of television, and fans were dying with anticipation to see him return for the reboot of TALES FROM THE CRYPT from M. Night Shyamalan. Sadly, though, those dreams will have to be put on hold for a while as the planned series has just been laid to rest in a crypt of its own.
TNT and TBS president Kevin Reilly spoke with Deadline recently and brought up how legal matters got in the way of bringing the show back to TV, and in that period of time they were approached by Ridley Scott about doing a night of original block of sci-fi programming:
That one got really caught up in a complete legal mess unfortunately with a very complicated underlying rights structure. We lost so much time, so I said, “Look, I’m not waiting around four years for this thing.” Maybe that will come back around but in the meantime, Ridley Scott had come up, who has so much creative enthusiasm.”
The reboot was announced a year ago, and the goal was to bring back the iconic character who would host a two-hour long block of horror programming, with Shyamalan curating the slate. The show was even given a 10-episode order last Apirl, with a "newly reinvented" Cryptkeeper in the works. But it seems all of that is on hold for now, with Shyamalan focusing on other things. The director recently released SPLIT to critical and commercial acclaim, and has the sequel, GLASS, coming down the pipe.
Though there doesn’t seem to be a full plan in place, Reilly doesn’t seem opposed to giving the series another crack once the legal matter are resolved, saying that he's "open to it." In that vein I say don’t be upset, CRYPT fans, for there is still a slight chance you could see the Cryptkeeper return to terrify your children, as I was when I was a child. Ah, memories.